1. US monetary policy: Waiting for Warsh.

Since the Iran war began, there has been a 100 bp swing in implied rates - from 75 bps of cuts to 25 bps of hikes.
And for the last 2 yrs, it has been a good bet to fade the rate hike calls.
Warsh & the FED aren't expected to do anything just yet, but the focus will be on tonight's policy statement and press conference for what the new boss signals - and whether there are any notable changes in his communication style, or fresh ideas on how the Fed should operate.

2. Gold is oversold.

Gold loses its appeal when rates are high, as it does not yield interest.

"Over the longer term, structural support (for gold) is expected to persist, driven by ongoing Asian demand and continued central bank purchases as a hedge against geopolitical and policy risks," Westpac analysts wrote in a research note.

3. SpaceX at $2.5 trillion was only the opening act.

Anthropic and OpenAI have already filed confidentially to go public, setting the stage for massive IPOs in the coming months. Both could list above $1 trillion.
OpenAI spent about $34B in 2025, revenue was about $13B, monthly revenue hit $2B by year-end, and the firm reported a net loss of $8B.
A massive reminder that AI demand is not the same thing as AI profitability.
The next IPO wave is basically asking investors how much loss they will tolerate for AI scale.

4. Tech related stocks are now close to 2/3rds of US total market cap.

Defensives are phasing out to obscurity, and traditional cyclicals (materials, industrials, energy, financials) are likewise languishing.
These extreme market concentrations are a problem for passive investors as their benchmarks are based on market cap and are backward-looking by design.
So, passive investing remains a cost-effective foundation for many portfolios. But with the vast majority of funds following the MSCI World benchmark, lots of market inefficiencies will remain to be exploited by the brave.
We therefore strongly believe that assessing individual company fundamentals and correlations between firms will become a critical differentiator once again.
The past decade rewarded simplicity. The next phase will reward judgment.

5. China Shock 2.0

The seemingly inexorable rise of China’s trade surplus, which hit $1.2 trillion last year, is petrifying policymakers around the world.
Nowhere is the topic hotter than in the European Union, whose bilateral trade deficit with the People’s Republic has doubled in the last five years to top €1 billion a day in the first quarter of 2026. EU leaders will meet next week to formulate a response. Coming up with an appropriate reaction will be a tough ask.
The numbers are stark. China is now the global research leader in 66 out of 74 critical technologies, including such building blocks of the new economic age as cloud and edge computing, computer vision, and generative artificial intelligence.
What is more, China has made strategic policy choices in several critical areas which are rapidly emerging as superior to those prevailing in the West. In AI, Chinese firms have focused on the development and dissemination of open-weight models designed to run on local devices, in contrast to their US competitors’ reliance on selling access to proprietary models running in cloud-based data centres. In energy, China has rapidly accelerated the electrification of economic activity by prioritising cheap power generation.

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